But then, he also had to serve in war. Medical care was not that advanced, you couldn't read about any niche topic you want online. Easy to see things through rose tinted glasses.

I wonder how many people would happily trade access to the web for a world where a laundry truck driver can afford a house. I imagine it's quite a lot.

I think the more interesting question would be, who is willing to trade peace for that? I think that it would be far harder to accept being shot at on the warfront than a world with no Internet.

Given how things are going, I think it's quite likely that many humans living today in developed countries will get to experience that part as well.

Not me.

Buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility and you basically give up any freedoms to be able to pay your mortgage, saved up for any repairs, and hope that a natural disaster doesn't wipe out your largest investment.

Comparatively, we're at the best time to be alive in history. I don't even know where the person I'm replying to lives, but I don't they will receive this message almost instantly.

I can learn about anything I want to, whenever I want.

I can travel almost anywhere without fear of getting lost.

I can order exotic things that I'd never see sticked on local shelves at the click of a mouse.

Life is pretty convenient and amazing and I'm okay sacrificing stress-filled homeownership for other luxuries.

(Not that we should have to, mind you, but that wasn't the question posed.)

And no philosophy worth anything would put any of the things you listed on the path to happiness. In fact, generally speaking, they are the opposite.

An infinite supply of anything to satisfy all of your desires does not lead to a fulfilling life -- just one with enough distractions to get you through the next day.

> Buying a house comes with a lot of responsibility and you basically give up any freedoms to be able to pay your mortgage, saved up for any repairs, and hope that a natural disaster doesn't wipe out your largest investment.

I think you kind of missed the point. The GP was talking about the days when a laundry truck driver could afford a house, i.e. a time when owning a house wasn't that big of a deal. If you could afford it as a laundry truck driver in your twenties, then you cold also afford to totally lose it, live as a renter for a few years, and buy another house in your thirties or forties. The entire point was, it didn't take such a crippling anmount of debt back then.

I certainly would. And I'm on my second house.

He had to serve in Germany during the Korean war. Still he got called up and posted away from his home, so you still have a point. I think it was people born in 1950 that had it easier, especially in the UK, since we didn't go to Vietnam.

In the US, the people that were born in the 1950s got to spend their teenage years not knowing if the Soviet Union is going to start World War III (the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was definitely a forming event for many teenage minds), then got to go through the 70s with an energy crisis and the potential draft to Vietnam, and then another energy crisis, and then got to experience the Chernobyl disaster in the 80s, wondering if they should re-watch "Duck and cover" and wonder why that hole in the ozone layer gets bigger and bigger.

Every generation has its ups and downs. For my generation, I have to deal with sky-high real estate prices, but I also have access to an unprecedented amount of free entertainment, free knowledge, the cheap supercomputer in my pocket allows me to stay in touch with anyone that I want, and when I go to the doctor, I probably won't see people in iron lungs anymore. I can travel to anywhere in the world for ridiculously low prices, and if I don't speak the language, a live translation app will do the work for me.

No, it's not all sunshine and roses, and people are right to call out issues with the current state of the world because things are NOT alright. But it's not like things were sunshine and roses for our grandparents generation either.

the point is that what you see as the roses and sunshine of your generation is increasingly seen as the "missile crisis" of our generation.

on top of that you have skyrocketing real estate prices.

He wasn't serving in war, he was deployed in Germany in 49.

True, I misremembered that, but it's also not the main point.

That's besides the point. Their dialogue is about how for all our efforts, the rich have only gotten richer and future generations are left in the dirt.

If medical care and peacetime and technology has progressed so much, why hasn't general living circumstances and wealth equity?

General living circumstances have improved a lot for a lot of countries though. Just look at some of the charts on: https://ourworldindata.org/a-history-of-global-living-condit...

> Medical care was not that advanced

My great grandfather served in both world wars and went to the hospital exactly once in his life, when he died in his 80s.

Do you think if he would've needed to go to the hospital he would've preferred today's status or the one at the time?

det think you'd be able to drive a truck and buy your first house today also.

No, that house is not going to be in Palo alto, and it is not going to be newly renovated.

His house probably wasn't either.

i think this sentiment stems from an at core inflated expectation to life.

I know of plenty of out if the city places where housing prices hasn't changed over the previous 15 years and where you probably would be able to find subsistence to pay you mortgage and get food on the table.

Fruitland, North Carolina has population of about 2000. Something tells me you too can buy a house while driving a laundry truck if you're willing to move to Fruitland.

You’re very wrong. Do a search before you pop off in such a self righteous manner.

https://www.redfin.com/city/32644/NC/Fruitland

Near Fruitland NC for 365k. Not too bad at all https://redf.in/tmYs3p

Only triple the price of what it sold for in 2017 (126k)

And worldwide wages have stagnated over time. Older generations only see that we get paid double or triple "what they earned" but ignore that cost of living has exploded many times more than that. Because they're the ones happy to sell houses for a healthy profit.

Don't blame the home owners for taking advantage of state sponsored real estate speculation. The only reason they are able to sell at 3x is because someone cut a speculator an easy loan. This is a feature of any system that allows loans against real estate.

Given the age and location of that house, are you confident it had indoor plumbing?

I think the land is what's important, not the house

Lmao at everyone else coping about how the housing crisis is really not that bad

You might have missed that the story is about a man that owned a house in rural North Carolina, where, like many rural areas in the US, it's still possible to purchase houses for 200-300k.

Living in a dense, urban environment close to all the expensive 'luxuries' is exactly the type of life eschewed by the subject of the story.

Did you reply to the right comment? Im not really sure where i said anything advocating living in a dense, urban environment close to all the luxuries